The types of police calls also changed, said Trudy Chyzowski, VICOT team leader.

“I think sometimes we always think about police calls as being a negative encounter,” she said. “The one thing that has changed … is that some of the clients are seeing positive encounters with police – perhaps they’re calling in to report crimes.”

Despite its successes, VICOT faces some ongoing challenges.

Finding housing for clients is a constant struggle, Chyzowski said.

“Any change in individual’s lives is not going to be significant unless somebody has a roof over their head first and can create some stability in their lives,” she said. “Trying to change a drug addiction problem … when somebody is living on the street is near impossible.”

Another challenge is tracking.

To date there has been no comprehensive analysis of the costs and benefits of the program over time.

“We’re in the process of gathering the longitudinal, the evaluational data,” Power said. “Information and data gathering is always a challenge (with limited staff resources).”

For instance, the total cost of the 12-member team isn’t known, but elsewhere, similar teams have a budget of $1.4 million.

Also not tracked is client progress after graduating from VICOT’s support program.

“What we hope to find, and we expect to find, is that a certain subset of the clients will no longer need the services of the team at some point and will become productive members of society,” Power said.